The biggest error in the whole "damage smoothening" debate, is that people assume that the damage you take throughout an encounter is static. I ask you, please, go check your damage taken on most boss fights, then ask yourself, how much use will that colossus proc actually be?

That isn't true at all. The whole point of damage smoothing and a control gearing strategy is to reduce the damage of spikes as much as possible. If you are going to get hit by a 400k attack which would you prefer?

a) a reliable 8k absorb
b) a dodge proc which might not even be up for the spike, if you even end up dodging it at all

Then there's also magic damage to consider.

Originally Posted by Firefly33

In a raid environment when you wont drop below 95% life for the most part of the fight, that proc won't do anything. the hots from the healers are already overhealing so that proc is in effect just more overhealing most of the time.

In that situation you should be using a DPS enchant, no questions asked. This will happen a lot more often in a 10-man than a 25-man raid and it also really depends on the strength of your raid group and the number of healers you are using. You either drop a healer or increase your own DPS.

Originally Posted by Firefly33

Basically, if I get an absorb for say 10k, and the boss hits me 20k, I reduced 50% of the damage. If the boss instead hits for me for 400k, I only reduced 2.5% of the damage. That is not damage smoothening, that is damage reduction.

I don't think you understand the point of "smoothing damage". Damage reduction during spike damage IS smoothing damage. That's the whole point. Anything that reduces the damage of a large damage spike is inherently smoothing damage. The question is which is preferable, a reliable small absorb or a small increase to a random chance of avoiding the damage completely.

That isn't true at all. The whole point of damage smoothing and a control gearing strategy is to reduce the damage of spikes as much as possible. If you are going to get hit by a 400k attack which would you prefer?

a) a reliable 8k absorb
b) a dodge proc which might not even be up for the spike, if you even end up dodging it at all

Then there's also magic damage to consider.

You misunderstood me, was not comparing it to the dodge proc

More like, saying that neither of them is very attractive. Basically it is my opinion that most of the weapon enchants are quite terribad. For me, DS becomes to most attractive one simply for dps purposes as none of the others really help us in survival.

Also @magic damage. Please, the only figth where that is even relevant is Lei-Shi. On all others that is completely unrelevant.

If a boss does 800k physical damage or 400k physical and 400k magic, you will still absorb the same amount. Some other stats however lose value in magic damage situations, however, my point is still that all weapon enchants are very bad in tanking purposes. None of them are really strong and in my opinion DS is the strongest as I said before for the dps.

In that situation you should be using a DPS enchant, no questions asked. This will happen a lot more often in a 10-man than a 25-man raid and it also really depends on the strength of your raid group and the number of healers you are using. You either drop a healer or increase your own DPS.

The 10 and 25 argument is interesting. Since, DS lose value in 25 man compared to 10 since you will have more vengeance and more dps in the group making the tanks dps a lower % of the total dps. However, colossus also lose value since the damage the tank take is higher.
( As in the previous example, lets say you take 100k damage in 10 and 300k in 25, an 8k absorb is more valuable if you take 100k compared to 300k damage. )

As I raid 10, I can't really comment on how the situation changes in 25 man. The only enchant that really gains value in 25 man is Windsong. ( If that gain is enough to make it better than DS, I do not know, possibly but have not tried it myself ).

I don't think you understand the point of "smoothing damage". Damage reduction during spike damage IS smoothing damage. That's the whole point. Anything that reduces the damage of a large damage spike is inherently smoothing damage. The question is which is preferable, a reliable small absorb or a small increase to a random chance of avoiding the damage completely.

Well as I mentioned earlier, I think neither. I do not argue that avoidance is shit. I am just saying that colossus in a real raid environment is equally bad.
Also, colossus is kinda reliable yes, but still not entirely reliable. Nothing says it will proc exactly when you need it, even though it is quite large change to proc.

In this tier, in my opinion, the stat that does the best damage smoothening, in practice, not on paper, is mastery. This coming from a haste paladin and probably the most vocal haste crusader that has been crusading for haste since mop beta. That being said, I think that the damage done to tanks this tier is not even worth mentioning, which is why, especially in 10's, damage done > damage reduction. Tank damage is just a non-issue.

And the reason why mastery is better than haste in practice is because how the figths are designed. The very same reason why colossus is not good is the same reason why haste wins on paper but not in practice in terms of pure damage smoothening.
And still, the same reason why haste is still better than mastery in practice is the same reason that DS is better than colossus. Damage smoothening doesn't really matter if the damage is not high enough to even worry about.

Actually funny how much colussus works in the same way that haste reduces damage. The difference though, is what makes haste king, is the added dps. If haste gave us 0 dps, but still the same damage reduction it gives now ( for some reason ), mastery would be far better.

---------- Post added 2013-01-30 at 05:13 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Sivick

Does anyone else find prot pally threat to be low compared to the other tanks? This is very frustrating...

Feels like we are weak on snap AoE threat but extremely strong on single target threat.

Last edited by Firefly33; 2013-01-30 at 04:13 AM.

Volun-told - A supposedly optional event, award, assignment, or activity in which a person (or persons) are required to attend either by persons-in-charge nominating them or their peers expecting them to be there. The individual often has no say in the matter, and non-attendance in frowned upon.I am so tired of seeing terrible people, being admired, for being terrible people.

that is the worst part, aoe tanking is our thing... and without the snap aoe threat it's difficult to build up vengeance which gimps us.

I was also wondering how other people are finding paladin threat. I am currently running with a druid. Assuming we both pull at the same time a pack of mobs, I might get threat on 1-3 of them if my Avenger's Shield crits. And as soon as his thrash starts ticking I have no chance of getting any back. That is without misdirection, ToT's or previous vengeance. It isn't a big issue since trash don't really matter, but still is a but annoying seeing so much superior threat.

I was also wondering how other people are finding paladin threat. I am currently running with a druid. Assuming we both pull at the same time a pack of mobs, I might get threat on 1-3 of them if my Avenger's Shield crits. And as soon as his thrash starts ticking I have no chance of getting any back. That is without misdirection, ToT's or previous vengeance. It isn't a big issue since trash don't really matter, but still is a but annoying seeing so much superior threat.

i'm getting the same problem, and for bosses with lots of adds, like windlord, it becomes a serious issue.

Yeah that was the only fight I was really annoyed with our threat. While working on it on heroic, we started with me on boss and druid on adds. There was no way I could keep up, even if the only threat he was doing on boss was aoe and dots. We swapped roles so I could get more vengeance for Sacred Shield and mostly Battle Healer and it was ok. But on fights like this or possibly adds on Empress when taking on too much can result in a death inside a gcd, we feel like we are missing something.

But on fights like this or possibly adds on Empress when taking on too much can result in a death inside a gcd, we feel like we are missing something.

I hit one of them with AS, the big one with J, the rest follow me through the consecrate I placed with my boss tanking vengeance. I use Holy Avenger as soon as they are near me, which lasts long enough for the first few to peel off me and reduce the damage of the remaining mobs.

Guys, I currently have the Darkmoon Trinket and the Valor one. I just got DArkmist Vortex (Str + Haste proc) from Lei Shi. I'm thinking about using it instead of the DArkmoon one... Is it the best option or the proc isn't worth it?

Guys, I currently have the Darkmoon Trinket and the Valor one. I just got DArkmist Vortex (Str + Haste proc) from Lei Shi. I'm thinking about using it instead of the DArkmoon one... Is it the best option or the proc isn't worth it?

You would be far better of with the ghost iron dragonling. My 5 cents.

Though to answer your question, yes imo its worth using Darkmist over the stamina trinkets, you really dont need stamina trinkets in this tier. I would still prefer lei-shin over darkmist. Rather have passive haste and proc str than passive str and proc haste.

Last edited by Firefly33; 2013-01-30 at 11:25 PM.

Volun-told - A supposedly optional event, award, assignment, or activity in which a person (or persons) are required to attend either by persons-in-charge nominating them or their peers expecting them to be there. The individual often has no say in the matter, and non-attendance in frowned upon.I am so tired of seeing terrible people, being admired, for being terrible people.

Guys, I currently have the Darkmoon Trinket and the Valor one. I just got DArkmist Vortex (Str + Haste proc) from Lei Shi. I'm thinking about using it instead of the DArkmoon one... Is it the best option or the proc isn't worth it?

Depends entirely upon your gear. I lose around 900 haste by not using Ghost Iron Dragonling and the randomness of the proc aside Darkmist is still a DPS upgrade. For what it's worth i'm ranking top 20 on a lot of fights, just got world 3rd Protection Paladin on heroic Tsulong tonight actually.

That said, Ghost Iron Dragonling or Darkmist are better than the darkmoon one.

The boring thing with rankings on so many figths as there are so many ways to cheese the rankings. Alot of players are having their raid group use a specific tactic to get more dps. The only thing I have done to get rankings is just push more dps and sometimes stand in shit with cds on to get more vengeance.

Volun-told - A supposedly optional event, award, assignment, or activity in which a person (or persons) are required to attend either by persons-in-charge nominating them or their peers expecting them to be there. The individual often has no say in the matter, and non-attendance in frowned upon.I am so tired of seeing terrible people, being admired, for being terrible people.

I don't care about rankings. I care about killing stuff and being on top of my game. Just did Sha of Fear with the new trinket. It's okay. But yea, I haven't yet grabbed a Lei Shen. Would it be viable to use Lei Shen + Dark Mist? (currently using Dark Mist + Valor one).

Ofc it would be viable but I would still prefer Ghost Iron Dragonling over both those trinkets. Unless you are engineer.

Volun-told - A supposedly optional event, award, assignment, or activity in which a person (or persons) are required to attend either by persons-in-charge nominating them or their peers expecting them to be there. The individual often has no say in the matter, and non-attendance in frowned upon.I am so tired of seeing terrible people, being admired, for being terrible people.

Personally I would use haste hit and exp. Allows for the most haste stacking.
Since less hit/exp gems/reforge = more haste gems/reforge.

Volun-told - A supposedly optional event, award, assignment, or activity in which a person (or persons) are required to attend either by persons-in-charge nominating them or their peers expecting them to be there. The individual often has no say in the matter, and non-attendance in frowned upon.I am so tired of seeing terrible people, being admired, for being terrible people.

Personally I would use haste hit and exp. Allows for the most haste stacking.
Since less hit/exp gems/reforge = more haste gems/reforge.

Oh yea, doh, I'll try that out, still have one o' those in the bank somewhere. Thanks (again)!

---------- Post added 2013-01-31 at 04:29 PM ----------

What would you guys say is a "go get it" range for unbuffed HP? 600k? More or less? I ask this due to the massive chunk of HP I'm losing by replacing these trinkets and wondering if I should be okay with it or aim for more. Most bosses don't reallly get me low too often but having less HP makes me a tad fearful for stuff like Spirit Kings HC (last transition's a tank shredder).

After reading thecks latest blog post, I realised, I found myself disagreeing more and more with theck. Paladin tanking is like inception atm and I think he needs to go one layer deeper. Theck is great at logical conclusions, math and making good reasoning. However, I feel like his assumptions are not strong enough.
Think he looks to hard at the paper and to little on how tanking works in an actual raid encounter.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to pinpoint a single reason that explains why dodge and parry perform so poorly.

Also find it strange that he does not understand the reason why dodge and parry is so horrible.

Volun-told - A supposedly optional event, award, assignment, or activity in which a person (or persons) are required to attend either by persons-in-charge nominating them or their peers expecting them to be there. The individual often has no say in the matter, and non-attendance in frowned upon.I am so tired of seeing terrible people, being admired, for being terrible people.